


Simon Says

by deemn



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Character Study, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-23
Updated: 2014-01-23
Packaged: 2018-01-09 17:18:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,601
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1148725
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deemn/pseuds/deemn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Henry's perspective of pre-canon, Season 1 and part of Season 2, told in drabbles.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Simon Says

**Be a real boy**

She's not his real mom. She lied about that. Maybe she stole him, maybe she kidnapped him, maybe he's really a prince of England. Maybe he's really King Arthur's son. Maybe she lied about everything. Maybe his name isn't Henry, maybe he is Michael, maybe he is John, maybe he is Jesus Christ.

(He doesn't really want to be Jesus Christ even though Father Gabe always says really nice things about Jesus because Jesus died with nails through his feet and stepping on a staple was bad enough.)

She's not his real mom so he's not her real son and if he's not her real son then who is he?

(No one and nothing; she's taken all the colors from his dreams.)

—

**Steal a loaf of bread**

He counts out all the allowance money he's stashed away. It comes to $32.41 which is nowhere near $250.00 and also it is entirely in dollar bills and coins and the website only takes credit cards.

It would be easiest to just take Hers—he struggles with the shape of her in his brain now, shape that says MomSafeWarmLight but is LiarLiarDarkFire—but she’s had those cell phone alerts set up any time something is charged since Mr. Melora at the grocery accidentally ran her card twice for the week’s groceries.

So instead he lingers at recess, pretends that the toggles on his coat perplex him, slips back behind Miss Blanchard’s desk and slides her wallet from her purse, tucks it into his coat pocket and follows the rest of the class out to the playground. He picks the prettiest card with VISA on the front and figures he'll have enough time to put the wallet back before the end of the day.

He knows she won't mind the charge; she’s the only person who’s ever said _your real mom_.

—

**Find the damsel in distress**

Emma is not like he thought she'd be. The shape of her was softer, blurry; now it's crisp clear and awkward. She wasn't supposed to be awkward. She was supposed to match the hollow space in his mind with MomWarmSafeLight.

Instead she is PricklySharpCold and Scared. He doesn't really understand the Scared but he recognizes it. It looks like his mom on Wednesdays before she visits Welo—

Not his mom. Not his Welo. Evil Queen and her poor dead Daddy who she killed anyway.

He's hungry.

—

**Show her all the danger she’s in**

Every time he thinks about the sheriff, and all the questions he’d had that last day, and the way there’d been hope for just five whole minutes and how Emma didn’t talk for three hours the next day because there’d been a dead body in her arms—

He hates the Evil Queen, he hates her, he hates her, she ruins everything, she ruins all the hope and Emma is Hope, BrightPureTrueHope, she’s going to _destroy_ her and just because she’s there.

It’s all his fault.  He brought Emma and Emma brought Hope and now Graham is dead and Emma is next.  Emma is next.  Emma is next.

His castle is the safest place he can think of and he spends the three afternoons following Graham’s funeral sitting there with the waves and the broken shells, hugging the book to his chest and wishing he could be six again.  If he closes his eyes and tries hard enough, he can just feel plaster around his hand, then the paintbrush slipping off the edge of the cast and onto his fingers.

He just wants a mom, just one, just for him.

—

**Lock her in a tower**

Emma can't leave, she can't, if she leaves everything goes back to the way it was and he isn't part of this world, he doesn't belong here, he doesn't fit. So if he doesn't fit, he won't go back, he’ll be lost, he’ll be lost, she can't go—

Emma cries and she fits this new weird shape now, SoftDarkFireLight, and he thinks of his mom and how she grabs her hair sometimes when he forgets to put his clothes in the hamper or put the cap back on the toothpaste. Emma is a blurry version of his mom in that shape and he doesn't know how that makes sense because Emma is Good and his mom is Evil.

Except she's not his mom, not really, so it doesn't matter if she's evil; it doesn't mean he has to be. He won't be evil. It doesn't matter. He is Good just like Emma.

The Emma shape gets darker the further away they get.

—

**Prove your love**

He doesn't understand how Emma can be so _dumb,_ dumber than John D and John D is super dumb. He walks around with no laces in his stupid sneakers because he's too dumb to learn to tie them and he cheats at dodgeball, that kind of dumb—

But Emma should be smart, because Henry’s smart so Emma has to be smart, it has to come from somewhere and how can Emma be so dumb as to think the Evil Queen would give her baked goods without an agenda?

His mom has always made fresh turnovers on Sundays and part of him can't forget the way the dough smells as it rises or how it feels buttered and flaking in his fingers or how it tastes sweet and tart and always with cinnamon curling on the tip of his tongue—

He takes the biggest bite he can because he doesn't have a mom, he only has two shapes that don't fit the outlines in his head.

—

**Find the dragon's lair**

He doesn't want to talk about what he saw when he was asleep and he doesn't want to talk about what it felt like when all the lights came back on.  But he has to because when the lights came back all through his body, it felt like the way his mom would hug him when she got home from an extra long day, felt BigBrightLight and SoftWarmSafe.

And when he was asleep, he saw Emma living a life in Boston where she smiled more and kissed some man or kissed some woman and bought pretty things and maybe someday had a baby she really wanted with someone who wouldn't die on her.

And he saw his mom sitting in the study right next to him on the couch while he read to her from that set of books she got him for Christmas two years ago, the ones with all the fables in them, and she played with the hair at the back of his neck and told him he needed a haircut and he asked for a mohawk again and she said no again but she smiled she smiled she smiled—

He saw his mom sitting alone in the study and saw the mob burst down her door and take her hostage and tie her up and when they all went down to the vault to rescue all the hearts the only thing left in the boxes were her smiles and smiles and smiles—

"She's still my mom," he whispers, but no one smiles.

—

**Slay the dragon**

He keeps dreaming of fire, huge walls of fire on a crystal chessboard and he's trapped in the middle like a bishop, like a knight.  It's weird fire, the kind like the Evil Queen used to light up the town seal, too magic too hot too angry. He's frightened and he almost misses that black place between Emma's life without him and his mom’s life with all her smiles locked away.

When he comes down the stairs and sees David in the doorway, he looks at the Evil Queen and watches her blow out all the fires and ask him how to smile, tell him she’s going to learn for him.

He doesn't look back when David drives them away, because David is Gramps now and Gramps is smiling.

—

**Do your homework**

Gramps wants to drive away but Henry can't do that, can't cant can't because—because Mom is there with a crazy man and they can't just _leave_ her. Sometimes his mom is so little, he's already up to her chest and he's only eleven, she's little and the man is big big big.

Henry's throat hurts where the man held him but his insides hurt way more. The way his mom said _Daniel_ sinks all the way into his stomach; it feels funny and milky-sick like Pepto when he's eaten too much pork.

He knows the name _Daniel_. _Daniel_ is his middle name, Henry Daniel Mills, _Daniel_ is what makes him not a junior or a second because Welo was just Henry Mills but he's Henry _Daniel_.

Henry came from Welo and Daniel came from Daddy or the Daddy he'd believed in before it all fell apart. But Daniel was dead. Mom always made that clear: Daddy died before Henry Daniel Mills was even born but he would have loved Henry with every ounce of his being.

If that’s Daniel in there then Daniel was supposed to be his dad and he can't just _leave_ when he could have a mom and a dad and an Emma all at once—

But when his mom comes out, Daniel isn't with her and she’s lost more smiles and Henry feels something sick in his middle that Pepto can’t fix. "He won't hurt you again," his mom tells him, smooths his hair back like its bedtime.

He lets the odd shape in his brain dissolve. It really just looked like a hybrid Mom-Emma, anyway.


End file.
